Undersea fiber cut after Taiwan earthquake - PCCW / Singtel / KT e tc connectivity disrupted

Thu Dec 28 05:50:55 UTC 2006

<snip>
> 	I've wondered how many boats/subs exist for these repairs
> and if attempting to do them all in parallel is going to be a big
> problem.  With 6 systems having outages, it will be interesting to see
> when various paths/systems come back online and if there is a gating
> factor in underseas repair gear being available in the region.

Just to give you an idea:

(from
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/12/27/taiwan.quake.ap/index.html) 

(c)2006 AP

Tyco International Ltd. said it has a Taiwan-based cable-laying ship heading
to the area for repairs.

"Pretty much everything south of Taiwan has been reported at fault," said
Frank Cuccio, vice president of marine services at Morristown, New
Jersey-based Tyco Telecommunications.

Cuccio expects the ship to be in position in a few days. It then takes three
to five days to repair each cable, but mudslides set off by the earthquake
can complicate matters by covering the cables, making them harder to
retrieve from the bottom.

Cuccio said the ruptures are more than 10,800 feet below sea level, too deep
for the remote-controlled submersibles that otherwise would find the cables.
Instead, the ship will drag grapnels along the bottom to find them.

The cables on the deep ocean floor are just two-thirds of an inch, a
testament both to the immense data capacity of optical fiber and the
fragility of the links that form the global telecommunications network.

> 
> 	- jared

Randy